Veg Box Day: 30/10/12

No drama this week! My veg box arrived on time and with everything where it should be. Plus it was cheap as chips, thanks to the lovely people at Riverford putting a £5 credit on my account to make up for the mix-up with the last box!

So my box contained a butternut squash, some carrots, a few onions, a bag of potatoes, broccoli, a Savoy cabbage and some cherry tomatoes. All good stuff, although I am getting a little tired of small potatoes - I want to make mash and jacket potatoes, and small ones are no good for that!

Anyway, I had an evening in last night so I decided to do some cooking. I still had carrots, potatoes and a sorry-looking red pepper left over from my last veg box, so I made carrot and coriander soup and a roasted tomato and pepper pasta sauce. For the soup I fried an onion with garlic, ground coriander, cumin and turmeric before adding the carrots, some chopped potatoes and some veg stock and simmering it until the veg was all nice and soft. I then used my stick blender to whizz it into a smooth soup - although I did manage to splatter myself and the kitchen in the process! The sauce was even easier - I just whacked the tomatoes and chopped-up pepper into the oven with a couple of cloves of garlic, a spritz of olive oil and some black pepper, and then when it was roasted I whizzed that up as well. It smells delicious and I can't wait to eat it!

In other news, I spotted some festive lights last night! Usually I'd moan about it being too early, but since the clocks went back at the weekend I still haven't got used to these dark evenings, and with the weather being so chilly it's nice to have a bit of sparkle around!

Veg Box Day: 16/10/12

...or The Mystery of the Missing Box!

Yes, this post is a whole week late. That's because there was a bit of intrigue surrounding last week's veg box delivery! Mainly because it didn't arrive on Tuesday as it ought to have done. I emailed my delivery person but didn't hear anything, and I started to wonder whether I'd got the wrong week (apart from the fact that the money had come out of my account).

Then, on Thursday morning, I went downstairs to go to work and there was my veg box, sitting in the hallway! There was a note attached from a very apologetic neighbour of mine, who evidently also has Riverford boxes delivered - they'd delivered mine to her house instead, and it had taken her a day to realise it was the wrong week for her box! Very nice (and honest) of her to return it - and she was mortified by the fact that she'd eaten my swiss chard!

So eventually, I got my box - minus the chard but with a cute little butternut squash, a green cabbage, potatoes, red peppers, carrots and mushrooms. I then went away for the weekend, so I haven't used much of my veg yet, but this evening I made some yummy fajitas.

I just fried some onion, one of the peppers, a load of mushrooms and a big handful of cabbage with some smoked paprika, chilli flakes and a clove of gorgeous smoked garlic (which I picked up at a fab smokery near my parents' house) and wrapped all the veg up in a couple of tortillas. Well, actually they were Loyd Grossman chapattis, which I've been meaning to try for ages - they're far lower in calories than tortilla wraps (under 100 per chapatti) and they were really tasty!

A bit of crumpet...

Ooh, missus! : )

Yep, this evening I decided to have a go at making crumpets. And it was a great success! I'd been out for an enormous pub lunch (I had a gorgeous grilled aubergine 'steak' topped with tomato sauce and grilled goat's cheese, with just about every vegetable imaginable - cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower cheese, carrots, roast butternut squash, parsnips and roast potatoes - and a Yorkshire pud) but I still fancied something for supper. I thought about making some pancakes, or maybe scrambled eggs...but then the idea of crumpets popped into my head and I decided to be brave and give it a go! It was a bit scary because the recipe involved yeast and yeast is always a bit of a worry for some reason, but I should have known good old Delia wouldn't let me down.

I halved the recipe because I didn't think I could quite manage 12 of them in one sitting, and while they came out a bit flatter than Delia's (I didn't have a crumpet/egg ring so I just spooned the mixture into the pan, which meant they didn't have any support to let them form proper crumpet shapes) they were absolutely delicious and I was seriously impressed by how easy they were to make!

Just perfect with butter...or blueberry jam...yum!

WIAW: It was all going so well...!

Yep, I'm back on the What I Ate Wednesday bandwagon again! Today has been quite tasty, but not exactly as I'd planned...

I started off with good old apple and blueberry Oat So Simple...

(...yes, that is the same photo as last time!)

And then I made use of my latest amazing discovery - toaster bags for making toasted sandwiches in the toaster. Our office only has a very basic kitchen, so being able to make a toasted sandwich is a real revelation! This one started life as an M&S egg and watercress one - sounds like an odd choice for a toastie, but it was lovely! I also had a salad from M&S on the side - their 'classic side salad' which had cherry tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, spring onion, radish and chive dressing.

I'm trying to get back into doing Pilates, so instead of my usual Wednesday run, I headed off for a Wednesday Pilates class. Which required fuel in the form of a banana...

Pilates was good (I think my stomach muscles will be complaining tomorrow but that's the point - core strength!) but when I took the homemade carrot, chickpea and lentil curry I'd been looking forward to out of the fridge, I spotted mould on the top of it. Not happy! Mind you, it was the last of the batch and it had been in the fridge for over a week, so I'm not all that surprised. So I had to raid the fridge for something to eat, and ended up with a Tilda microwave pilau rice pack with added frozen spinach and a sprinkle of dried chilli flakes. It was nice enough, but it wasn't my delicious curry!

Go and have a look at what everyone else around the web has been eating...!

Veg Box Day: 2/10/12

This is the first veg box I've had for ages, what with being away and everything. It's a good one, though! I got onions, carrots, salad potatoes, cherry tomatoes, courgettes, broccoli and what they called 'true spinach', which just means proper big spinach leaves instead of the little baby ones.

I used some of the spinach, broccoli and potatoes to make a big salady thing with mustard mayo to go with a poached salmon fillet, and I also made a batch of carrot and chickpea curry, with lentils and more of the spinach, which went in the freezer. Nigella made a pasta and courgette thing on her Nigellissima programme the other night, which may well feature in my culinary future! Or I could make my mum's amazing zucchini cake...